Legend Has It
by peroxidepest17
Summary: The legend of carrots.


**Title: **Legend Has It  
**Universe:** XXXHolic  
**Theme/Topic:** Carrots  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Character/Pairing/s:** hints of DoumekixWatanuki, but nothing concrete. Yuuko.  
**Warnings/Spoilers:** None I can imagine.  
**Word Count:** 926  
**Summary:** The legend of carrots.  
**Dedication:** meme drabble request for tyreling. Also for swinku because you need to SLEEP AND FEEL BETTER I LOVE YOU. **  
A/N:** I R DUMB.  
**Disclaimer:** Not mine, though I wish constantly.  
**Distribution:** Just lemme know.

* * *

"Why are you two in here?!" Watanuki demanded, glaring sideways at the duo lingering in the doorway of Doumeki's kitchen as he cooked.

"Put in extra carrots," Doumeki said, materializing next to the much-harassed chef and holding a particularly large one out towards him as if for emphasis. "I like them."

Watanuki scowled at Doumeki and the carrot. "Put that down."

Doumeki complied, setting it down. "Put in extra carrots," he repeated, like Watanuki hadn't heard him the first time.

"Yes, yes, I HEARD YOU. YOU_ LIKE_ THEM. Now take TWO BIG STEPS BACKWARDS OKAY?" he asked. "A concept called _personal space_."

Doumeki stared at him. After a moment, he even deigned to take his fingers out of his ears.

Watanuki bristled and turned back to his cooking, muttering.

Yuuko twittered from the doorway, leaning against the frame and sipping sake—probably her fourth or fifth cup _before_ dinner, acting like the temple was _her_ house or something. "You know the legend about carrots, right, Watanuki?" she sing-songed, and swayed lazily (drunkenly).

"I don't want to know about a legend for carrots!" he told her, and chopped onions for the curry with as decisive an air as he could muster standing next to Doumeki in _Doumeki's kitchen _while wearing an apron and a handkerchief tied atop his head (like some sort of housewife except _he was not Doumeki's wife_).

"It's a harmless little saying, I promise!" Yuuko said, and pouted (ineffectually) at his nastiness. The look on her face didn't sit well with Watanuki.

"It is," Doumeki concurred. "It's just about how you can use carrots to…"

Watanuki paled. "It's _food_! It's food and not to be used for anything else, do you hear me? Eating only! I don't want to know."

Yuuko twittered. "Are you thinking of perverted things, Waataanuukii?"

He grabbed the carrot Doumeki had put down and set it closer to him, like she was somehow going to defile it with her words. "Yuuko-san there are _boundaries_! Especially in the kitchen! These things are for… well, they're food and aren't meant for…_other things_."

"What things?" Doumeki asked, 100 unhelpful.

Watanuki flushed and glared at him. "THINGS!" he said. "_Things that aren't eating_ _things_!"

"Thanks for elaborating."

Watanuki ignored him.

Yuuko chortled and put a hand on her hip, resting the side of her head against the doorway. "Doumeki-kun knows the legend!"

Doumeki nodded.

Her eyes sparkled. "Well, that just figures, I suppose. You can tell just looking at the difference between you both who knows it and who doesn't."

Watanuki glared as her words cut right through him. "What's _that_ supposed to mean?!" he demanded, despite the fact that he probably ought to have known better by now than to ask for any clarifications from Yuuko. "What—by _looking_—could possibly have to do with carrots and show the difference between us?" He adjusted his glasses and looked properly indignant, despite the housewife gear.

Yuuko twittered. "I thought you didn't want to know? Weren't you _embarrassed_ just now?"

He looked away. "I wasn't embarrassed! You guys were just… you had that perverted _look_ on your face and _he_," he pointed to Doumeki with his knife, "is _never _helpful. I naturally assumed the worst!"

Doumeki and Yuuko looked at each other.

"Perverted?" she asked, and looked offended. "Why my sweet Watanuki, there's nothing _I_ know of that you can do that involves perversions and carrots." She laughed innocently. "Ne, Doumeki, what about you?"

"Nope," he said.

They both looked at Watanuki then. "Maybe _your_ imagination is just being perverted and _you're_ really the only one here who thinks like that."

"Probably," Doumeki agreed.

Watanuki sputtered. "DON'T EVEN START THAT YUUKO-SAN! I WASN'T… I MEAN… I DON'T…" he ground his teeth, cheeks turning pink. "Nevermind."

"Ahhh, pervert-Watanuki-kun!" Yuuko chortled, and slapped her own leg heartily. "He can't even say what he was thinking to defend himself! It must have been _very naughty._"

"Yup," Doumeki chimed in, still unhelpfully.

Watanuki twitched. "WELL YOU SAID IT HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN US AND _HE'S _ALWAYS GOT GIRLS WHO LIKE HIM SWARMING ALL OVER HIM SO EXCUSE ME FOR BEING RATIONAL AND ASSUMING YOUR STUPID LEGEND HAD TO DO WITH…WITH…_ STUFF_!"

Watanuki breathed deep after he got the words out, cheeks still pink, but proud that he'd managed to justify himself.

A pause.

And then Doumeki blinked. "The legend is that carrots help make your vision better," he said, with the utmost calm.

A beat.

"W-what?"

"The legend is that carrots help make your vision better," Doumeki repeated, exactly as he'd said it a moment ago. Like some sort of recording or something.

And then, just to make sure an idiot like Watanuki understood what was going on here, Doumeki pointed to himself. "No glasses."

He pointed to Watanuki next. "Glasses."

Pause.

Thinking that the other boy still didn't get it, Doumeki pressed on. Slowly. "So by looking at us, you can tell who likes carrots and who doesn't."

Watanuki stared.

Doumeki stared back. He couldn't make it any simpler than that.

Yuuko grinned and shook her head, taking advantage of the lapse in conversation to get her point across. Again. "Such a dirty mind for such a young man, Watanuki! I'm shocked!"

Watanuki stared some more.

And then, when he could speak again, "BOTH OF YOU GET OUT OF THE KITCHEN!!! NOW!"

Yuuko laughed.

Doumeki blinked. "Don't forget extra carrots," he said, and strolled casually out of the room. "I like them."

Watanuki almost—_almost_—threw one of the damned things at his head.

**END**


End file.
